I remember flipping through an old computing
magazine to find a monstrous case on the front cover with a headline depicting the world's
first 25MHz 386 months before Intel ever released the processor at 25MHz. At the
heart of this $10,000 "super system" was an Intel 386-20 running at 25MHz, how
did the manufacturer manage to accomplish this for a "mere" ten grand? By
doing something we all take for granted in the current day of computing. Getting
something for nothing, the free upgrade, no, not the "four finger discount"
rather what we have all come to know as overclocking.

A 5MHz overclock is hardly anything by today's
standards, what was once thought to be an amazing accomplishment when you overclocked your
5x86-133 to 150MHz is now the bare minimum for overclocking. Users running their
300MHz Celeron processors at 450MHz will be the first to tell you that we've definitely
come a long way from the days when a 386 running at 25MHz could win the front cover of a
computing magazine. At the same time, we're reaching the limits of what a well
manufactured processor and a $30 heatsink/fan can offer us. With the first barrier
keeping us from overclocking the current generation of processors beyond the limits we've
already pushed them to obviously being heat, the question has been posed time and time
again, and now we'll take the first steps towards a simple answer...get ready to beat the
heat as AnandTech takes a look at alternative cooling methods at their best.

If you can't stand the heat...freeze
the kitchen

Here's the problem: We have a ceramic
plate no larger than 2.5" x 2.5", running at 100 degrees Fahrenheit under normal
conditions, and running at 120+ degrees overclocked...and we need to cool it down to more
than half that temperature. This is the point at which air fails us, and where the
creative mind must be allowed to roam free, it is this point at which a company started by
a group of 5 people with a common vision attempted to solve the problems of the
overclocking world with their cooling technology. The company, rightfully dubbed,
Kryotech, developed a vapor phase refrigeration technique that can effectively cool a CMOS
device (such as the processor in your system) down to -40 degrees Celsius, a fairly
standard refrigeration temperature.

Much like placing your CPU in a freezer, the
Kryotech design resembles that of your home refrigerator in terms of performance, and
proportionally, in terms of size. The Kryotech design must be implemented in its own
specially constructed case and shipped pre-configured in terms of processor choice.
While this design (you can read more about the Kryotech design in particular at www.kryotech.com) offers numerous benefits, the release
of a practical version of the design or even a remotely available version of Kryotech's
most highly anticipated product, the CoolK6 (a K6-2 333 overclocked to 450MHz), have kept
Kryotech from rising to their rightfully deserved position among overclockers. At
the same time, the $1600 price tag of a Kryotech CoolK6 System (price includes case,
cooling system, motherboard, and CPU) isn't too practical for even most high end users as
a Pentium II 450 can be picked up for much less and offer similar performance.

But if Kryotech can do it...why can't anyone
else? In preparation for an ongoing AnandTech special on alternative cooling, let's
start off by outlining exactly what we need to have a successful cooling device, not only
for processors, but for video chipsets and other such peripherals as well.